


Beyond Legacy

by leporidae



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Bad Parenting, Gen, Introspection, Kindred Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 05:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20148322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leporidae/pseuds/leporidae
Summary: “Death doesn’t scare me,” she says, and it’s not a lie. In battle she has killed many people, and she herself expects to be killed in battle someday. There’s no sense wasting fear on a mundane reality. “When I feel things I don’t understand… that’s what’s scary.”





	Beyond Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> My piece for the [Together We Ride Vol. 5 Zine](https://twitter.com/twrzine), a Fire Emblem zine focused on crossovers across games in the series. It follows Laevatein as she finds kindred spirits in Eir and Aversa and their respective not-so-pleasant parental situations. 
> 
> Laevatein is my favorite female character in the entire Fire Emblem series (yeah) so writing her perspective for a zine was such a dream. I really hope through my writing that I can bring some extra humanity to her character where the actual story of Heroes failed a bit, haha.

Eir is cold, though not in the same way the residents of Nifl are cold. Fjorm and her siblings are cold but bright, like sun glinting off freshly fallen snow, and their cheeks still flush pink when they laugh. In contrast, the Princess of Hel is cold in a way that permeates the skin and leaves onlookers uneasy, as though the clammy hand of death itself is dragging its bony claws against their spine. 

After an especially aimless day of no training and very little socialization Laevatein spots her, watching the sky with her arms tucked behind her back. She had never intended to approach Eir, and today is no exception. Like the rest of the Order, Laevatein can’t bring herself to fully trust her, and she would also rather avoid the headache of trying to converse with a reticent and cryptic person. 

“Mother…” 

The word is hardly a whisper carried on the wind, but Laevatein hears it. She hears it, and she hears the layers of sentiment behind it, the unflinching adoration coupled with unease and the agony of unwanted familial responsibility. It’s the same way Laevatein herself might utter a very similar word. _Father_.

Someday Kiran may summon Surtr here, the man whose overwhelming silhouette had once consumed all of Laevatein’s identity. And regardless of whether the Surtr who joins them is the one she remembers or another man wearing his face, the sight of him may very well paralyze her. _What will Father think of me now, working for the Order of Heroes who fought so hard to take him down?_

Those same enemies have become her army now, her companions. Alfonse is serious but kind, and Sharena overwhelming but benevolent. The two siblings drag her into everything and welcome her into their lives despite their history. Fjorm and Gunnthrá have become friends with this world’s Laegjarn, and anyone who makes her sister smile is worth protecting. Ylgr is impish but full of life; Hrid is awkward and has cold hands, but he still tries to regard his fellow Heroes with warmth. The Order of Heroes is a collection of individuals, Laevatein has learned, not just ice sculptures for Surtr to whittle away and melt as he pleases.

Yet she misses her father. His orders once gave her life a simple, mindless purpose. It was easier that way, though not happier.

She fears her father too. Such savagery, such lack of regard even for his own bloodline. In her version of their world Laegjarn had burned to a crisp while their father watched on impassively, and it had still been impossible for Laevatein to stand up to him.

She wonders if Eir feels the same.

“Hello, dear. Don’t you look sad?”

Laevatein jumps slightly and turns to look at the woman — another member of the Order of Heroes, one hailing from the continent of… what was it it again? Something with a S? Laevatein had never been very good at memorizing facts about anywhere, Múspellincluded. All Laevatein remembers are some of the other soldiers with which the woman interacts: Robin, the slightly eccentric tactician; and Chrom, the bumbling prince who acts nothing like the royals in Zenith she is accustomed to.

“What was your name again?”

The question comes out unintentionally blunt, and the woman laughs a bit unkindly, hand raising to stifle the mirth. Laevatein finds herself staring at the stranger’s fingernails, sharp and dark as the talons of a raven. “How impolite,” she teases. “Aren’t you supposed to be a princess? Where are your manners?”

Laevatein’s lips purse together in a slight pout. “I can't remember your name,” she insists, growing frustrated at the conversational roadblock. She’d been a member of the Order of Heroes for a few months now, and she’s been getting better at communicating, but talking to this woman makes her feel as though she’s regressing. It’s an unpleasant and somewhat humiliating sensation. “You’re being rude too.”

“How astute of you,” the woman drawls, and the carnivorous grin never falters. “It’s Aversa. And of course, I know who _you_ are, Princess Laevatein of Múspell. It’s useful to know the name of your allies, you know. If you get to know people, they’re less likely to stab you in the back.”

“I carry Laevatein with me at all times,” she replies, hand migrating to the hilt of her blade and gripping it firmly. “I am always prepared for an attack. Your threats mean nothing to me.”

There’s nothing to be gained in engaging Aversa like this, Laevatein thinks, especially when it’s brutally clear Aversa is toying with her. So she lets her gaze wander back to Eir across the way. Laevatein has never been good at reading her own emotions or those of others, but the sadness radiates off Eir in waves Laevatein can almost tangibly feel like the lapping of water, cold and coursing across her skin. She shivers.

“Something on your mind?” Aversa presses. “You’ve been staring at Princess Eir for quite a long time. If she catches you, she might think you’re infatuated, you know.”

Laevatein ignores the last bit. “She seems sad, thinking about her mother,” she says, simply and honestly. “Thinking of my father, it makes me a bit sad too. I wonder if I should talk to her...” Though Aversa had posed the question, Laevatein’s response is directed towards herself. “I’m not used to finding things in common with people.”

A bark of laughter sounds from the woman beside her, and Laevatein jumps. “Feeling sad when thinking about your parents doesn’t make you special around here, dear.” There’s an edge to Aversa’s voice not unlike that of a blade, but Laevatein isn’t used to fighting with words and remains unmoving as Aversa speaks. “War always tears apart families. This is a new sensation for you? That simply proves how sheltered you are.”

“I’m not trying to be special,” Laevatein mutters, still frustrated by Aversa’s manner towards her, the barbed tongue she never asked for.

Aversa watches her hawkishly before turning away with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Not all people take kindly to questions about their family,” she says, tossing the words behind her as she slips away. “Approaching your allies in such an entitled manner, well… you may get more than you bargained for.”

It’s only after Aversa has vanished that Laevatein realizes that Aversa is not referring to Eir, but to herself.

_I wonder what happened to Aversa’s family._

Ultimately, it’s not her place to know.

After a few ineffectual minutes gazing at the path by which Aversa had disappeared, Laevatein’s attention returns to Eir, whose lithe figure has not budged. Still the woman gazes upon the empty horizon, hair billowing behind her with the grace and silence of a snake, and Laevatein wonders what she sees there in her mind’s eye. Her mother, perhaps?

_Excuse me._

_Hello._

_Are you okay?_

Each greeting dies on her tongue. Laevatein is suddenly nervous that Aversa is right, that she’s making a mistake, that she’s been reading into everything too much or too little. A hasty retreat seems prudent. Why should Eir care about her concern anyway? It’s like Aversa had said: family trouble isn’t special. Surtr is just one bad parent amidst a sea of troubled families, and surely there are plenty of people at the castle better equipped to comfort Eir —

“Do you need something?”

The thin whisper of Eir’s voice reaches her ears, and Laevatein shrinks back guiltily. “N-no,” she mumbles, wrapping her hands around one another and giving them a squeeze for self-confidence. “I was just wondering...”

Eir waits.

“...About your mother.”

She turns away from Laevatein then, a curtain of shadow draping across her features. “It’s only natural that you wouldn’t trust me, since my mother is your enemy. And I am, of course, a prisoner of the Order of Heroes, not a true member of the army. I have not forgotten that fact.”

Laevatein shakes her head. “It’s not that. I wasn’t talking about trust. You — you seem to miss her.” The words are choked out thickly, but they’re out in the open now.

The silvery princess says nothing, face tilting down further still.

“I miss my father too, sometimes,” Laevatein whispers, and she feels so tiny admitting it, shame crawling up her back and itching at her skin. “He’s… he wasn’t a good person. He killed my sister… I could never forgive him for that. But not having him around, well… it feels strange. And sad.” She bites her lip as her mind flickers to despair. But she’s learned to push past the numbness these days, allowing herself to feel what she’d rather not feel. Her emotions are what sets her apart from an inanimate, unfeeling weapon.

It’s what her Laegjarn would have wanted.

“A good person?” Eir echoes. “What makes a person good? In death, we are all the same.”

The air is chilly all of a sudden. Laevatein doesn’t handle cold well.

“My apologies. I forget most people do not wish to think about death.”

Laevatein shakes her head. “Death doesn’t scare me,” she says, and it’s not a lie. In battle she has killed many people, and she herself expects to be killed in battle someday. There’s no sense wasting fear on a mundane reality. “When I feel things I don’t understand… that’s what’s scary.”

The silence is stifling, but Eir speaks again before Laevatein can fumble an apology. “Thank you for sharing your feelings with me, though I’m afraid I can’t offer the same in return at this time.”

Laevatein looks down, a bit ashamed.

“Perhaps in the future I will tell you about my mother,” Eir says, eyes wandering back to the horizon. “It’s difficult, isn’t it, Princess Laevatein? To have a parent who raised you, who is the very reason you exist in this world, and for that same parent to be the reason many innocent lives have been taken.”

Eir’s voice fades until Laevatein can no longer tell if she’s talking. She’s unsure how to continue this interaction or if she even wants to. Her own pain, her simultaneous yearning and hatred for her father, has reopened like a wound, spilling darkness across her heart.

“Yes… it’s difficult.”

Laevatein thinks of the flash of distrust in Aversa’s eyes, of the listless movement of Eir’s body as though floating in a dream, of Laevatein’s own bouts of apathy when her emotions involuntarily flicker out to protect her from their burn. All three women are stifled by the iron claw of their legacies around their throats, choking away what little fight is left within them.

And yet, knowing that she’s not the only one suffocating somehow makes it easier for Laevatein to breathe.


End file.
